Posts Tagged ‘Business’
When The Dog Days Of Summer Hit Your Business
So summer finally arrived, now it’s the dog days of July & August, and business has dropped off right? It happens every year, but most business owners don’t plan for the drop off. So when the drop hits, you start to panic, you make offers you normally wouldn’t make, you do things you normally wouldn’t do.
I too have the same problem, in fact, we all have the same problem, it’s called needing more clients / customers every month. We all at some point experience the dog days of summer drop off in business, or maybe it’s attendance for your workshop and so on. Why are we so shocked or suddenly surprised when it happens?
One of the best tips I can give you is this, find like-minded partners in your business community. Why not get together with 2 or 3 other businesses and work together for the common good of your businesses. Help each other get through the summer months by building a promotion that involves all of you, and share the costs evenly if at all possible. This is very common in the online world of doing business on the Internet, it just makes sense. The MLM businesses call this having the best interest in your success, why, because everyone wins.
Brainstorm ideas together, work the details out and promote it like it you would the Olympics, invest in it. This is not a new concept, it’s just one we tend to over look or blow off, mostly because it seems like it’s too much work. Well, welcome to the world of being in business, work is part of the deal when you started your business.
The work is actually the easy part of solving your problem, the real issue is foresight. Taking the time to stop and look ahead 3 – 6 months can help prevent these down turns in July & August. It takes effort, you may want to bring someone in to help look at your situation from the outside looking in, they will see things you can’t. Why? Because you are too close to the problem.
This all sounds so simple doesn’t it, if it was these short-term struggles wouldn’t happen to most businesses. So keep it simple, because simple is hard enough.
So, find some partners going through the same struggle in your area, make sure they are not competition : ) Pose the question of doing a promotion together, and get creative. Do something significant, not the usual giveaways and 10% discounts, do something special for your business communities / tribes. Make your clients/customers want to get involved, they have the money, give them a reason to buy. Your customers are worth it.
The Future Of Business – The Chamber Of Commerce & The Tribe
Most of us have routines, I have a regular habit of stopping into the same place for my morning coffee, no it’s not Starbucks or Tim Horton’s. It’s the Roasted Grape, the coffee is amazing and the food is even better. People think I own the place I’m there so often, or have shares in the business….I don’t.
One morning I stopped in for coffee, there was a networking group meeting at the time, I knew at least half of the people there. I sat off to the side drinking my coffee when I heard my name, they asked me to join them, I asked…are you sure? I know me, I’ll talk if you give me the floor : )
After the session was over, a number of people approached me to chat, that’s why we go to these types of events right? I tend to ask more question when I sit at these round tables, mostly to make people think, because that’s what I do. Much of my work is reviewing business plans, asking a thousand questions, consulting, and public speaking. Sometimes, 4 – 5 times a year I will hold a workshop on the future of business – the open and free business model.
After chatting with a number of people, I posed the concept of, I think your local Chamber of Commerce should adopt the Tribe Model. I was asked the big question of course, what would that would that look like to you? I had to stop myself, I didn’t want to just blurt out a bunch of thoughts without actually thinking it through more. I’m not even sure I have it clear in my head right now, but I want to get it down and ask you what you think of the idea?
The biggest difference between a tribe and a community is….PASSION! The leaders and the members of the tribe have a high level of passion for something, it could be anything, as long as it benefits the tribe. It could even be a cause. Communities are more of a “gathering place”, they’re kind of stagnant and are formed from common interests of community members, or the squeaky wheels. Great tribes are always in motion, communities are not, they tend to be pretty static and have a hierarchy that operates from the top down.
Communities are like churches to me, they think in terms of programs and projects rather than being in a constant state of flux. Flux merely means flow, and that flow is always forward thinking.
We should look for tribes within communities, but don’t assume the community is a tribe. Great tribes tend to be formed by people with expertise, desire and passion, but don’t put to much emphasis on expertise.
These are a few initial thoughts, it’s very high level, but you know who the people are within your communities that are passionate about something in the business community. The Chamber should let these passionate people build, rather than try to control them. But that would mean chaos, and very few are willing to let chaos happen, why, it feels to out of control.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this concept, or your ideas on how your local chamber could adopt a more open and free model, one where the members are in a constant state of flux. It would mean a radical new way of thinking about chamber.
Related articles
- Searching, Seeking And Belonging (owengreaves.com)
- The Future Of Business – It Will Get Harder & Harder To Get Attention & Build Trust (owengreaves.com)
The Future Of Business – The World Population
The Future Of Business – The World Population. As each hour, day, month, and year passes, the world population continues to grow at an exponential rate. That rate is made even more alarming when you consider the amount of land used to grow food for this growing population. It is even more alarming when you consider the amount of water needed to sustain the population in the next 20 years.
This illustration should also make you think about your business community, how do you become part of the solution, how do stop consuming and start providing. Your personal survival and your businesses survival will look the same in many ways. We should be helping each other, rather than trying to get as much as we can from each other.
Here is an interesting video to help you see the population growing before your eyes:
The Future Of Business – Plumbers To Nano-Plumbers
The Future Of Business – Plumbers To Nano-Plumbers. Hard to believe I’m mentioning plumbers in a blog post, but I have a story to share. On Friday my wife noticed a wet spot in the ceiling down in our wet room area, you know, where we hang our coats and change our boots and such. It didn’t seem that bad but it was now showing itself, so I called a friend who recommended someone, I called them and they didn’t answer their phone. I tried a cell number and left a message. I felt better because I was dealing with the problem in a calm rational manner.
On Saturday we didn’t do much, a little gardening, house cleaning and I watched the Blue Jays Baseball Game, nice relaxing day in my books. My wife was fussing about this leak downstairs, so I went and look at it, it seemed to have stopped leaking as the ceiling was drying out. I called the number for the plumber again but no answer again, I left another message. We carried on with our day, we had a friend over for BBQ and sat back sipping some wine before calling it an evening. We didn’t even mention the plumbing problem to our company because we didn’t feel it was urgent I guess, we should of asked for a referral. It was a very nice evening, we merely took it easy and went to bed as if the world was all is we would have it.
Hee it is Monday morning, I slept in, I guess I was tired. I got up, had a shower, went to the kitchen, had a banana and went downstairs to my office. I have to walk right by the where the leak is so I took a quick peak. I ran for the phone and called my plumber friend again, only this time more frantically, NO ANSWER!!! So I grabbed the phone book and called the first one I saw. I have to say this, the girl on the phone could tell I was a little stressed, I mean it looks like the ceiling is going to crash to the floor because of the weight of the water. She talked to me as if I was calling 911, in a nice calm voice she asked me to describe the situation and then got the plumber on the phone. It turns out he is close by my home and said he would be there in 15 minutes, he arrived in ten minutes.
THE POINT
He walks in, assess the damage, and was able to find the problem I couldn’t find, that’s because it was well hidden and I really didn’t know what I was looking for (other than water) and where I should be looking for it. He knew where to go, and found the problem. It was actually two pipes that were leaking, and the water build up on the ceiling, he said it has been leaking probably for 6 months because the water was turning yellow.
He fixed the problem, now I have some drywalling and painting to do, but the problem has been solved. That’s what we pay people to do right, solve problems. But my point isn’t the leak being fixed, it has more to do with the plumber.
I talk about, you talk about it all the time. We talk about the future of business changing and how it will be done, but how will plumbing be different? How could this plumber fix my problem with his smart phone? How could he fix it remotely? He couldn’t, and I don’t expect that to change in my lifetime.
Some businesses will change very little, someone still has to be the plumber. I’m sure many types of businesses will be able to automate production lines and so on, but how would the plumber take his or business to that automated state? Today, they can’t.
Do you run a business like this? How will your business adopt the future of business? I suspect you will either use smart phones and the Internet on some level, but your work is very hands on.
I would recommend building a network of people, your current and old customers, get them to refer regularly, build a tribe online that is like-minded in the plumbing niche, and share your trade secrets on a blog, teach people how to fix simple plumbing problems. Steal the audience the TV audience by offering better information, even service. You will become the leader of your industry if you stick with it long enough, patience and persistence always prevail.
I’m grateful for traditional industrial age workers like plumbers, but how will that industry change in the new economy? The Future Of Business – Plumbers, how will they survive?
NANO-PLUMBERS
Let’s look ahead to the future where the plumber repair man may be extinct! Imagine this, you are building a house or an office building, it doesn’t matter. You have found a source for pipes or lines that have nanomaterial, so they are self-repairing. As soon as a weakness or the potential for a pin-hole leak to start, the nanotechnology instantly senses it, and repairs it. Or it sends a message to the installer for tracking purposes, that would be a fail safe for followup. The followup would be done remotely, because nanobots are wireless devices, they can be reprogrammed and or data can be downloaded from them.
Nanotechnology could serve in this way, it would revolutionize the plumbing industry, but who will adopt it? Today this type of product and service would be expensive, but in the next decade, it could be reasonably priced and accessible to everyone. Even older homes could be retro-fitted with the newer technology. From Nanosilver Coatings to Nanobots, there are many different types being worked on today, it’s a matter of time before this technology is in the hands of developers. The cost savings over time will out weight the high cost up front. The same arguement can be had with solar panels for your home, but that’s another story for another time.
How does this Nano-Plumbing idea make you feel?
The Future Of Business – It Will Get Harder & Harder To Get Attention & Build Trust
The Future Of Business – It Will Get Harder & Harder To Get Attention & Trust. I chat with many who say it’s hard to get attention online for their business. There are many ways to skin the cat, you could spend lots of money trying to do online what you’ve always done offline, but that seldom works. The online world is a unique beast, people don’t want to be sold, they don’t want to be yelled at in Social Networks, but they do want things on their own terms. And that is one of the many challenges business owners are facing everyday, but why don’t business owners understand, because it’s still confusing.
The two biggest reasons it will get harder to get attention & trust, it’s sheer numbers really. The first issue is the noise, I mean the volume of it, and you’re in there somewhere trying to be heard. Let’s look at the noise problem, there are currently 2.2 Billion people on the Internet, almost a Billion on FaceBook, and factor in all the other Social Networks. Each network has an approach on how monetize or generate revenue, and some have models for business owners, you know, FaceBook Pages, Google Plus Pages for business and so on. But 2.2 Billion people are producing a crap load of content (noise), and it’s a tidal wave of information, a giant global wall of noise, it’s already hard to be heard right? The second issue is….Well, there’s still another 3 Billion people coming online, and our tools have not progressed at the rate they need to, so we can all filter the noise effectively.
It is perceived, the larger the following you have online, the easier it is to be heard, and supposedly you are trusted at a higher rate. If we used the Industrial Age way of thinking, that would be true, but it’s not!
Consumers online are much more in control of you and your business than in any other time in history of doing commerce. It takes nanosecond for them to find out how ethical you and your business is, and if it isn’t ethical, you will probably never get heard again. Bad service, bad communication, and bad treatment of customers, are all on hypersensitive mode today.
It is perceived, that if you were an early adopter of any technology, you will be heard and seen as a leader, that too is not true. You may be for a short period of time, but eventually your output of content will be your voice, and if the masses don’t like your voice, you will be ignored. If your product or service does not deliver what it supposed to do, you will be ignored.
What does all this mean? It’s going to get harder and harder to get attention and build trust. The world is getting fussier, more sensitive, and has what some would call hyper sensitive BS protectors on. And that filter will work at a high rate.
So what’s the answer, probably far too many for you to adopt I suspect. Products & Services from this day forward have to be compelling, solve problems, deliver what it claims, and do so at an almost perfect rate. I can’t imagine what that means to be completely honest, a perfect delivery rate, a product or service that never fails, it gives me a headache thinking about it. Oh and BTW, I have the same problem you have, are you hearing me? I didn’t think so, too many people out there disrupting my disruption.
In the end, do the best work you can, deliver the best solutions you can, and be the best person you can…treat you customers the best you can, and above all, support them better than anyone else can. At least then you might have a chance to be heard, and your might be able to build trust through your efforts. You won’t be able to take a day off from these problems, they will be in your face everyday.
Deliver solid customer service and create a buzz, build a tribe, and your tribe will help you rise above the noise, and then maybe, you will have built trust.
The Future Of Business? It will get harder & harder to get attention & trust. Do think it’s getting easier, or harder?
Related articles
- The Future Of Business – Pay Attention (owengreaves.com)
- The Future Of Business – The Consumers New Found Power (owengreaves.com)
- Can I really trust you? How to build trust online and offline to get referrals (successnetwork.wordpress.com)
- The Future Of Business – Online & Offline (owengreaves.com)
- Is Your Business Community Listening? (owengreaves.com)
- 9 Ways to Improve the Signal to Noise Ratio on Twitter (briansolis.com)
